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Key dates

A timeline for the California Interscholastic Federation’s two controversial proposals — allowing students to play for their high school team and club team in the same sport during the same season; and applying limits to practice time:

Oct. 28: Introduced at CIF’s State Federated Council meeting.

Jan. 22: Will be introduced at CIF’s San Diego Section Board of Managers meeting.

Jan. 31-Feb. 1: Discussion at State Federated Council meeting.

April 30: Vote by San Diego Section Board of Managers.

May 2: Vote by State Federated Council.

In September, Roger Blake highlighted three “hot” topics when addressing an audience of local athletic directors at the Fall Symposium inside the San Diego Hall of Champions.

In addition to simultaneous high school and club team participation and limits on practice time, the CIF executive director spotlighted out-of-season competition.

Blake called for a crackdown on enforcing existing rules that prohibit coaches and athletes from participating in leagues intact as a school team during the offseason.

“You cannot operate under the auspices of the school,” said San Diego Section Commissioner Jerry Schniepp. “You need to be an outside program with outside insurance. You can’t use the school name, you can’t use the school equipment or facilities and so forth.

“You need to get facility use permits like any outside program group would do. There’s been some discussion about allowing schools to take ownership of these programs, but it didn’t go anywhere with the commissioners. It puts a lot of liability on the school and forces them to take ownership of these programs outside of the season to now where you have a year-round team.”

Some local athletic directors and coaches have expressed concern, citing potential risks in sending athletes to programs with no connection to the school.

“When the CIF rules allow it, we try to keep adults that are credentialed, fingerprinted, people that we know that will make the right decisions for our community kids, involved with our children versus those that we don’t have control over, whether it be AAU soccer or basketball coaches,” said one athletic director who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Influence is also a concern.

“Certainly it’s good for my program to play and practice with my players in the offseason. By doing that, I can control how much time we practice, how many games we play, who plays hurt and who sits out,” one coach told the U-T in September.

“I don’t want my players playing for an AAU coach who has ties to a rival school. That coach is in my player’s ear about playing for his buddy at another school. It’s really not right.”